Obama breaks with longtime pastor

— -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama severed ties Tuesday with Jeremiah Wright, decrying his longtime minister's latest remarks as "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in the truth."

Campaigning in North Carolina, Obama denounced Wright's combative appearance Monday at the National Press Club as "a show of disrespect to me" and "an insult to what we've been trying to do in this campaign."

He said the break with Wright, who retired from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, is final. "Whatever relationship I had with Rev. Wright has changed," Obama said. Attempts to reach Wright were unsuccessful.

Obama's emphatic statements came as some Republicans and conservatives were gearing up to make an issue of his relationship with Wright before the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6.

"We're working on a number of projects right now that will certainly talk about the Rev. Wright situation, from ads to a feature-length documentary," said Will Holley of the conservative activist group Citizens United.

The Obama-Wright relationship is featured in a North Carolina GOP ad in the gubernatorial race and one for Republican Greg Davis, a House candidate in Mississippi.

Last month, in a major speech on race prompted by controversy over Wright's past sermons, Obama said he disagreed with some of his former pastor's views but did not want to disown the man who married him and baptized his children.

On Tuesday, the senator said his feelings changed when he viewed tapes of the Press Club appearance, in which Wright defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and suggested that the United States promoted "terrorism" and created the AIDS virus to kill blacks.

Obama described himself as "shocked" by Wright's "insensitivity and the outrageousness." While he felt the media was unfairly caricaturing Wright a month ago, Obama said, "Yesterday, I think he caricatured himself."

Carolene Mays, an Indiana state lawmaker and publisher of The Indianapolis Recorder, the state's largest black newspaper, said opinions have turned against Wright. "In the black community, people now feel that Rev. Wright is hurting Barack Obama," Mays said. She says she's neutral in the Democratic primary.